As we know, Bitcoin and mining Bitcoin is popular worldwide, and some people are gaining money from this job, but how many Bitcoins are left and waiting to be mined? In 2021 Bitcoin gained considerable popularity, which convinced miners to mine more Bitcoin. When Bitcoin was rising, it was a golden opportunity to mine more bitcoin because its value was increasing more than ever.
One question comes to mind “How many Bitcoins are left?” We can not give exact answers to this question, but we can provide an approximate answer quickly. It is estimated that over 19 million Bitcoins are in the flow and are already mined. In total, the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto limited Bitcoin to 21 million, which literally means there will be only 21 million bitcoin to exist. Approximately 2 or 3 million Bitcoins are not mined right now. But when the Bitcoin’s layer increases, it is harder to mine Bitcoin. So it will take quite some time until all Bitcoins are mined. Every layer that Bitcoin gains make the difficulty go higher than the previous layer. All bitcoins will be mined approximately at 2140. It is 118 years from now.
Why does mining bitcoin is getting more difficult?
Bitcoin’s blockchain is a proof-of-work type of blockchain, and it will adjust the difficulty according to the number of miners. If there are for example 10,000 miners, it will be much more difficult compared to 1000 miners. The share will be distributed between miners. If there are too many miners, the share will be lesser, because all of them are solving a mathematical puzzle with their GPUs.
Let’s say the last bitcoin in 2140 was mined, but this won’t be the end of Bitcoin mining. The miners will still receive rewards, but their reward is not going to be Bitcoin instead, it is going to be transaction fees of Bitcoin. They will compete for transaction fees so this will keep Bitcoin mining alive even after the last Bitcoin is mined.